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Message from the President

Learning to Be an American

Colin Campbell

Colonial Williamsburg is the apex of a historic triangle traced
by the roads and byways that wind from Duke of Gloucester Street
to Jamestown and to Yorktown. Three little villages, they tell
a consequential story of the beginnings of these United States,
a story worth revisiting.

At Jamestown, in 1607, the English built, under harrowing conditions,
their first permanent New World settlement, the birthplace of
representative government in America. At Williamsburg, in 1776,
Virginia patriots, defying tyranny and oppression, called their
countrymen to arms, to sacrifice, and to independence. At Yorktown,
in 1781, the ragtag Continentals and their resplendent allies
the French, won the siege and battle that secured the victory
of our Revolution. To journey from one of these hamlets to the
next is to track the continuum of an adventure that deserves to
be related authentically, thoughtfully, and well. It’s a
story that belongs to the American people.

Colonial Williamsburg, the Association for the Preservation of
Virginia Antiquities, the National Park Service, and the Commonwealth
of Virginia are stewards of the settings for the narrative of
an inspiring national saga. Our shared obligation is to faithfully
interpret the triangle’s history, to tell its story seamlessly
and unforgettably. That enduring duty is spotlighted by the approach
of 2007, when the nation, indeed the world, celebrates Jamestown’s
400th anniversary and all that it means. We, the storytellers,
are closely collaborating to present the scenes, to explain the
facts, to explore the ideas, with the consummate care they deserve.

That’s a difficult task, but it is important. It is, quite
frankly, good business, but, most important, it is our mission,
and, in the heterogeneous nation we have become since 1607, the
importance of that mission only grows.

What makes us a great nation is more than our history; it is as
well the principles, ideals, and values that history teaches.
Historian Gordon Wood, a Colonial Williamsburg trustee, said in
a television interview that America’s great achievement
is that “ours is a nation built of beliefs. To be an American
is to believe in something, not to be someone. We have this marvelous
country which is held together by ideology, by a set of beliefs
that came out of the Revolution. It keeps us together. You don’t
have to be someone. You don’t have to have a certain ancestor.
You can learn to be an American by coming to believe in these
things—liberty, equality, constitutionalism, and so on.
You don’t have to come from a certain race or ethnicity.
That’s not true of most of the world.”

Learning to be an American means understanding the lessons of
America’s past, each generation embracing anew a set of
common beliefs, sharing in the inheritance of ideals, whether
we be the descendants of the oldest immigrant or ourselves the
latest arrivals. Our diversity is a source of our strength. Jamestown’s
anniversary emphasizes what we have achieved by learning to accommodate
our differences in ethnicity, language, religion, and culture
to a common belief in the principles of liberty and freedom. It’s
a lesson well worth revisiting in 2007, a story well worth retelling.
It is a story not just of dates and events but of an idea—the
idea of America, for all people, for all time.